


Fighting in an age of loneliness

by RaenUE



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, giffghis is the endgame here but since it's not happening quite yet im not tagging it lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29431635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaenUE/pseuds/RaenUE
Summary: Giffca does not want to be king. He should probably just come out and say it, but...A story on how Giffca and Caineghis (eventually) get together
Kudos: 3





	Fighting in an age of loneliness

It was loud in the arena. Loud, and bright, and noisy, and he hated it. All the eyes in the country, all the eyes in the continent were on him in this very moment and it made him sick. He wanted to run away, to burrow into the ground, to disappear, but most of all, Giffca never wanted to feel this way again.

The cheers of the crowd nearly drowned out his own thoughts, but he didn’t need the clarity of mind needed to ask himself how he got here.

He knew. He already knew without having to think on it. He was able to fight his way up the ladder, all the way to the grand finals through strength and some degree of cunning, though it’s not like he needed much of the latter. Many of the challengers just wanted to show off their strength or have some fun, so even ignoring how on a bad day Giffca would still have no problem launching them into orbit, almost nobody in the tournament _actually_ wanted to win the title so none of them really tried to.

After all, who in their right mind would actually want to be king? You’d have to sit around leading a country, you’d have no real vacation days to speak of, you’d become a target for your enemies… aside from living in the spotlight –if that was even something you wanted– there were no real perks to the job.

Giffca certainly didn’t want to be king. He didn’t want to be restricted by the throne, he didn’t want to worry that every meal he ate was poisoned, and he absolutely did not, under any circumstances, want to be the center of attention.

But the topic of who should become the next king is one where people never seemed to agree on.

It was mostly Gallian nobles who wanted Giffca to take the throne. Gallia was a bit too young of a country to have a noble class, though there were families that held more sway over the country than others and those people almost unilaterally wanted Giffca to be the next king.

He wasn’t surprised, but he couldn’t care less.

So what if he was level headed? So what if he had tact? So what if he could be in a room with Dheginsea for more than five minutes without wanting to tear his own head off? Someone else could be king. Someone who actually wanted that job. He wanted to do what he could to serve Gallia, sure, but did Gallia _need_ him to be king? Couldn’t the Gallia of today, a Gallia that was at peace, settle for someone who _was_ hotheaded? Someone who _was_ a little bit too blunt? Someone who _would_ get torn limb from limb by Dheginsea if they so much as looked at him the wrong way?

Someone like the man he was about to face off against?

If Giffca was the pick of the ruling class –not that Gallia had much of one– Caineghis would be the populist pick. A man of the people, someone who represented the _true_ soul of Gallia. Caineghis was popular, well-liked, and charismatic and it was no surprise he emerged as a rival to Giffca, but if Giffca was honest, Caineghis was barely on his radar in the way people thought he was.

Caineghis _was_ everything that Giffca wasn’t, and he _did_ represent ideals that Giffca couldn’t achieve, but Giffca didn’t envy him. They both wanted different things and at the tender age of fifty Giffca was enough of an adult to be at peace with that, but because people hyped them up as rivals the situation had spiraled out of Giffca’s control and he couldn’t _not_ participate in the tournament.

It was Caineghis’ fault, really. Before they met, Giffca was just some kid that some snobby cats decided was a good pick for king for one reason or another. Barely anyone had known of him and he had done his best to keep it that way, but Caineghis… Caineghis ruined all of that.

* * *

There was a meeting a while back where a bunch of Gallia’s nobles had gotten together and discussed who might become king next, and, naturally, the people that those nobles wanted to sponsor were invited too. They’d still need to win in the tournament that would be held after the current monarch announced the desire to step down, so it was little more than an overblown networking event not quite unlike the parties that beorc nobles would hold, but the idea was to get out there, meet your competition, and for most of them, realize you were hopelessly outmatched.

Parties weren’t something that Giffca liked to begin with, and he viewed parties like this one as little more than opportunities to suck up to people who wanted to look down on you, but his parents had been ambassadors to Crimea while he was younger and he had plenty of chances to mingle with Crimea’s so-called ‘high society’ and learn how to behave in ways that won’t get you disowned by your parents.

You smile, you say yes, and you don’t make a mess.

It wasn’t fun, but as long as you didn’t make any missteps you’d make it out of there alive one way or another.

In beorc years, Giffca would have been about sixteen, maybe seventeen at the time; old enough to have expectations placed on you, but not old enough to be truly viewed as anything other than a child. He could tell that the adults in the room looked down on him a little less than they did at the other candidates, but to them, he was still a child. Just a kid.

Of course, he’d humor them and talk about life in Crimea, complement them, and so on and so forth. It’d keep them placated but prevent him from sticking out too much, and after an eternity of half-truths that exaggerated their greatness and concealed his, eventually the party would end and he could be on his way.

O r at least, that was how it was supposed to go.

It turned out that Giffca wasn’t the only person bored out of their mind by the party. One of the nobles had suggested that they hold a little wrestling tournament to give the kiddos something to do. The rules would be the same as the one that would be held to actually decide the king –make your opponent’s back hit the ground using nothing but grabs, grapples, and throws and you score a point– but obviously it’d be a more casual ordeal.

Giffca was ready to hang back and watch it play out, but...

“You should participate, Giffca.”

“I remember some of your father’s bouts in the ring. Think you can put on a better show than your old man?”

“C’mon, show us what you’re made of!”

The nobles who had crowded around him before now wanted nothing but to throw him to the wolves. He was well built and he could hold his own against most of the people present, but they wanted him to prove it specifically against the shirtless, hotheaded redhead who was standing in the center of the room, loudly asking if there was anybody out there who could make him break a sweat.

He didn’t know if they expected him to win, but they were all but outright telling him to prove that he was worth their time. After all, he could be the best king ever but it wouldn’t mean anything if he couldn’t win in the ring and make it to the throne.

“Fine, fine,” he yielded as he stepped forwards, “But one of you will be treating me to dinner tonight if I win.”

He wasn’t going to win. The only throws he’d be doing is throwing the match, but he’d put up enough of a fight to avoid making a fool of himself. They’d get their show, and they’d get the message that they should find someone else to put their chips behind for the actual tournament. Maybe they could grapple for a bit and he’d pretend to run out of steam, or they’d–

Giffca had been so preoccupied coming up with a convincing way to lose the match that he forgot he actually had to fight in it to begin with and he barely had time to dodge his oncoming opponent once, and then a second time.

“Hey!” The lunging lion snarled, “Stop dodging!”

“You expect me to stand there while you charge at me with enough force to break all my ribs? _Are you insane?_ ”

The other lion lunged at him again, which he sidestepped easily.

“Are you actually going to fight him?!”

“C’mon! Quit being such a pussy!”

The irony of that last jeer wasn’t lost on Giffca, but the crowd was growing impatient after three dodges. They wanted to see blood, and from the sound of it, _his_ blood.

Giffca no longer had the time to find a way to lose without having his body destroyed; he’d need to settle for a way out of this situation that he was quickly losing his grip on. But even still, he couldn’t just walk away. He physically wouldn’t be able to break free of the ring of people surrounding the two of them, so, as risky as it was, his only way out of this situation was to embrace it fully and dive even further in.

The other lion prepared to charge again. His stance was a little different this time, probably to try to counter Giffca’s evasive maneuvers. He might try to clothesline him, or turn the charge into a tackle, but if nothing else he was easy to read, and Giffca knew he’d be able to react accordingly and land some kind of strike.

Sure enough, when his opponent charged, his arms came out to catch Giffca when he would sidestep, but they came out several moments too early. Giffca stepped forward and then crouched down as he shifted to the side, putting him in the perfect position to grab his opponent’s torso as he passed by and bring his knee up into the other lion’s gut.

The room fell silent as the two men stopped moving and when Giffca let go and his opponent fell to the ground, there were several audible gasps and a couple surprised expletives from the crowd.

It took Giffca a moment to remember that strikes weren’t legal moves. He needed to say something to justify what he had done in this momentary lull before the situation spiraled further out of control.

“If you wanted a fair fight, you shouldn’t have charged at me before I even entered the ring. Let me know when you’re going to take this seriously.”

Giffca turned to leave, and the crowd parted before him.

He didn’t look at their faces as he walked out of the room. He wanted to run, to dash out of the villa, but years of being around two-faced beorc nobles who would sooner eat you alive at the first sign of weakness than look the other way as you begged for mercy had taught him how to carry himself, and years of being around adults that viewed him as something less than human had taught him to not even register the faces and voices that surrounded him.

It was a mistake. A massive mistake. A faux-paus of the highest magnitude, and he was trying to play it off as a natural result of the other man’s rashness. Not only had he broke the rules that kept this competition friendly and prevented it from degenerating into an all-out bloodbath, he had tried to make it the other man’s fault that he had ended up on the floor, his gut exploding into a million different flavors of pain, and that would become a stigma that he would carry for life.

Worse yet, he had done that to someone who was likely to be the next king. Given the lack of people in the room capable of bringing that man to his knees, he may as well pack his bags now and emigrate to literally anywhere else instead of waiting around to see what becomes of him after the next transfer of power.

His heart was pounding, and his mind was racing, and he had to hold in the urge to transform and burn off all the excess energy inside of him until he was out of sight. The further he got away from the party and the closer he got to the entrance of the villa, the faster he moved, caring less for the eyes that saw his flustered state. He narrowly missed a collision with a housekeeper and almost ran headfirst into the closed front door, but was able to make it outside without further incident.

With a roar, he transformed and dashed off into a nearby alley, navigating through the backside of a city he knew like the back of his hand, through the backside of a city he wished never saw him again.

* * *

Giffca’s legs ended up bringing him to the front door of his parents house.

They had moved back to Gallia around a decade ago, after Giffca began to age slower than the beorc children around him and it became more difficult to have him socialize with people who matured three times faster than him, though he also suspected it was to have him spend ample time in Gallia before he became an adult. Both of his parents had remained ambassadors to Crimea during that time, though up until Giffca had moved out a few months earlier, they had cut down on the amount of time where both of them would be away from home.

He didn’t know if they were home, but… _he_ was here, so he might as well see if they were too.

He reached out to the door, hand ready to knock on it the moment he built up the nerve to let his presence be known.

He waited and waited to be ready, but that moment of strength just refused to come.

“You look flustered. Did something happen at the party?”

Giffca’s father had approached him from behind as he  hemmed and hawed.

Why had he even come here? His father wouldn’t be able to shield him from the wrath of his future employer. Would he even want to try?

“Can we step inside?”

“Is that a yes?”

Giffca remained silent, but his father just laughed.

“You should already know that you can’t hide much from a diplomat who’s survived the warzone of beorc politics, son.”

His father stepped around Giffca and opened the front door for him.

“Are you hungry?” He said, leading them into the house and then to the living room, “I think I saw some pawprints nearby that looked familiar.”

Transforming, as involuntary as it was, still burned off massive amounts of calories, and Giffca would probably need to eat something if he didn’t want to pass out before dinner.

“A little bit.”

“I can fix you something quick, if you’d like.”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Giffca’s father disappeared into the kitchen, and Giffca made himself comfortable on the sofa.

“Oh and before we continue,” his father called out a moment later, “Can you disclose if by letting you into my house, I’ve given shelter to a fugitive?”

Once a diplomat, always a diplomat it seemed.

Giffca thought for a moment. He _had_ stepped so incredibly far out of line that his gut instinct has been telling him to flee the country, sure, but he had _also_ acted in self-defense and it’s not like he killed his opponent so...

...actually, now that he thought about it, just like he hadn’t actually learned his opponent’s name, Giffca hadn’t actually checked to make sure he was still alive when he hit the ground. He didn’t think he had hit him _that_ hard, but had he killed him?

No, if he had killed a man they wouldn’t have just let him waltz out of there. He knew some of those nobles never left the house without an excessive amount of olivi grass and would have no trouble subduing him while transformed, and even if they hadn’t he certainly couldn’t overpower _everyone_ present.

W ith murder ruled out,  the only thing left was assault, but in a fight initiated and escalated by his opponent, he didn’t expect  anyone to try to argue his actions didn’t constitute self-defense.

“No,” Giffca said, having come to a verdict, “I’ve done nothing illegal.”

G iffca’s father  returned from the kitchen with two sandwiches on a plate and set it down on the coffee table between them.

“I’m not fond of that long pause before you answered, but I’ll believe you.”

S peaking to his father was,  quite frankly ,  like speaking to all diplomats: a massive chore.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Mhmm. So,” his father picked up his sandwich and took a bite, “What’s got you running back home with your tail between your legs.”

Great. Here came all the awful cat jokes he picked up while in Crimea.

“I… To begin with, the party was boring. At least you could gossip while at beorc parties, but it was just dry conversation after dry conversation, and eventually someone suggested that all the little kittens that they so graciously invited wrestle a little.”

“Yeah,” his father laughed, “That’s usually how those meetings go. And? Anyone that looked promising?”

“...Unfortunately, yes. Most people got the hint pretty quickly that he was in a league of his own, but some of the windba– nobles I had been entertaining pushed me to enter the ring. This guy’s strong, but he’s… _lacking_ in other areas. Charged at me before I had the chance to remove my jacket and I ended up having to grab him and shove my knee into his gut to get him to relent.”

“ _Ouch_. So what happened next?”

“I left.”

“You left?”

“Yes.”

His father stared at him for a while as he continued to eat his sandwich.

“Are you going to say something?”

“You left.”

“Yeah…?”

His father took a deep breath.

“I know I give you a hard time more than I probably should, but I am genuinely lost as to which part of all that you’re anxious about.”

“I beat the shit out of the next king of Gallia...? What’s unclear?”

“ _That’s_ what you’re worried about? Giffca, everyone in that room saw you not just _win_ , but win _handicapped_ against someone nobody else could scratch. Nobody there thinks that kid is some untouchable shoo-in, not anymore, and if you ask me he got what was coming to him! Did you get his name?”

“No, but–”

_knock knock_

There was a knock at the front door, and, hardly comforted by his father’s dismissal of his concerns, Giffca couldn’t help but assume the worst.

“I have to get this.”

His father got up and began to head towards the front, but paused for a moment.

“If the food I made for you isn’t eaten by the time I’m back, the wrath of a hypothetical king-to-be is going to be the least of your concerns.”

Giffca’s gaze shifted to the untouched sandwich on the table before him as his father left the room. It was roast beef with some lettuce and a spicy mustard on rye; a simple sandwich, but one he had consumed and enjoyed hundreds upon thousands of times in his youth.

It was a small but unmistakable gesture, one Giffca had neglected to notice because he was too preoccupied worrying about things that –as his father rightly pointed out– would probably amount to nothing in the end

No matter what happened he’d always be their son.

He couldn’t see the front door from where he was sitting, so he might as well get started on replenishing the energy he had burned off on his way here.

It was better than nothing but worry about things, at the very least.

  
  


His father returned just as he polished off the first half of the sandwich, followed closely behind by the Usumgal, the current king of Gallia.

Giffca nearly choked on the food he was swallowing, but regained his composure fairly quickly and rose to his feet.

“King Usumgal,” Giffca said as he gave a quick salute.

“Are you that surprised to see me? I heard about what happened at the party, and I figured I was overdue for a visit to see how my favorite archivist was doing.”

Incredible . 

Absolutely incredible.

Giffca had thought he had been assuming the worst, but  he had truly been a fool. E ven his  overactive imagination failed to  conceive the king himself  hunting him down  to deliver his punishment  for today’s events.

“Don’t tell Nisaba I said that though,” Usumgal laughed, “You know how he’s one to let being head archivist go to his head.”

But if the king was here to tell him to get a head start on packing his bags, why was he making jokes about the title Giffca’s boss held?

Yes, Usumgal had come off as a fairly mellow man each time Giffca had met him –and between his parent’s jobs and his own, that had been quite a few times– but wouldn’t he be able to be serious in times like this?

“What are you looking so distraught over, my boy? I don’t think Caineghis has ever acknowledged anyone the way he has with you! And let me tell you – he’s challenged me a hundred times and landed flat on his back each and every time, but getting him to admit that he’s been beaten? That’s a first!”

Giffca’s mind was reeling. Had Usumgal come all this way just to chat? Was he really not here to talk to him about how he went too far today?

“...I don’t think I understand.”

“Oh, had he not even given you his name?!” Usumgal was a little shocked, “Can’t say I’m surprised, but I hope you finally knocked some sense into the boy!”

They were having two separate conversations, that much was clear, but if Giffca was able to cover his tracks, perhaps he could hide that and make it seem like this wasn’t a bunch of mistakes piling up one after another.

“Oh… I, er,” Giffca stumbled over his words, “I suppose I expected him to be a bit upset, but if ...Caineghis was it? If he was that impressed, I suppose I made quite the impression.”

“Oho! That’s the spirit!”

Usumgal clapped Giffca on the back

“Now, I _did_ hear that some of the people at the party owe you dinner, but would you like to join me tonight?”

Giffca knew what to do.

You smile and say yes, no matter how much you’d rather do literally anything else.

“Oh, I’d be glad to. Were you thinking of dinner in the castle, or some place in town? I can recommend a few restaurants if you’d like.”

It was a stock response, something that he’d probably said word-for-word to someone else at some other point in time. Saying no to Usumgal wasn’t an option.

“I actually already have a reservation for this barbecue place that’s supposed to be really good. They let you cook it yourself, and the cuts of meat they have available are all top of the line! Sound good to you?”

“Oh, I think I know which one you’re referring to! What time is the reservation?”

Most of Giffca’s enthusiasm was forced, though he was truly looking forward to the meal. High-grade food tended to be well outside his budget, and if the king of Gallia wanted to treat him, who was he to say no?

“It’ll be after sundown, but would you like to go for a walk in the meantime?”

“Sure, let me clean up first. It’ll just be–”

“I can deal with the plate, Giffca,” his father interrupted him with a knowing smile, “You shouldn’t keep the king waiting.”

“Thank you, father.”

Was he smiling because his son was apparently in the clear, or because he had successfully hidden his garbage hand from the most powerful man in the land and allowed him to continue with the assumption he had a royal flush?

Was his father proud of him as a father, or as a diplomat?

Probably both.

Giffca wanted to scream, both at his father for making him to fend for himself and at himself for somehow maneuvering into the exact position he was trying to avoid.

But of course, Giffca lamented as he followed the king outside, screaming and letting his frustrations out would just make matters worse.

Usumgal continued to chat with Giffca all the way to the restaurant and Giffca entertained the king, though unlike with the nobles earlier the conversation was one Giffca genuinely wanted to take part in. Usumgal’s sudden interest in Giffca was –just like with the nobles– undeniably because he was now a serious contender for the throne, but he was also genuinely interested in Giffca as a person and seemed intent on treating him as one too. It was a pleasant change of pace, and dinner with the king wasn’t looking like that bad of an outcome anymore. He’d still have to stay vigilant and not let the illusion that he wasn’t panicking fade, but maybe he could let the meal be a relaxed affair and worry about how he was going to get himself out of this hole he had dug later.

Maybe, just maybe, things would turn out alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading what I have here so far! Unlike last year's ~~trainwreck~~ multi-part fic that I started on valentines that also happens to feature a certain red lion, I _pwomise_ this one will actually end up with two people getting together <3  
> Giffca was a character that I've previously had lots of difficulty writing, probably because he's uhhhhhhhh woefully neglected by both games and supplementary materials (his likes and dislikes are even listed as 'nothing in particular' in both tellius artbooks 🥴), but I think I've figured out a way to write him without needing to stare at a blank page for eight months first! I hope yall look forward to what's to come!
> 
> Also full disclosure: the title of this is almost taken wholesale from the title of [a 2018 documentary by sbnation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DoaUyMGPWI) on the history of mma and consensual violence and the cultural environments that shaped mma over the years. If that sounds like something you're interested in, please please please take the content warning at the beginning seriously


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